City of Fire
by Snuffbox
Summary: When Delilah Bright stravagates to Cittanuova, the City of Fire, she finds her loyalties divided between her devil-may-care stravangante, a female circus fire-eater, and a handsome di Chimici prince. But trouble is brewing in Cittanuova as the di Chimici close in, and Delilah must discover her true purpose and allies before tragedy strikes.
1. Prologue

City of Fire

**Summary**: **Written after City of Swords. Delilah Bright discovers she is part of the order of Stravaganti when is transported to the independent city state of Cittanuova. But the city is in danger – the di Chimici wish to consolidate their power in the south, starting with Cittanuova, and Delilah soon finds her own life in peril when torn between her affections for her stravagante, a spirited circus fire-eater called Aurelia, intent on defending her city's liberty, and the handsome Filippo di Chimici, the Bellonan Ambassador, and the Stravaganti's enemy. Delilah must decide where her true loyalties lie, but her choice will have great consequences for the fate of Cittanuova.**

The air smelt of smoke, and the black velvet of the night sky was spangled with golden sparks. The City of Fire was unchanged since Aurelia's childhood.

Home.

Aurelia had been to all the city states of Talia, but she had yet to see any that rivalled the shabby beauty of Cittanuova.

The circus had been touring in Romula when Rodolfo Rossi's worried face had emerged in the mirror. "The di Chimici have turned their gaze to Cittanuova. I fear the city is in danger, my friend. You must return home."

Luckily, circus folk were an eccentric bunch, but also vain, and so no one had turned a hair at her transporting a small silver mirror around the country with her, despite the fact that such objects were normally the preserve of nobles.

It had been Aurelia's good fortune that the _Circo dei Cieli _had been so far south already; Cittanuova was the natural progression from there when their month in Romula was over, and it coincided with the city's coming festivities. When she had announced her intention to stay with the circus when they went to Cittanuova, Leonato, the ringmaster, had looked at her strangely. She had sworn to the whole cast on joining that she would never go back there. Normally when they went to Cittanuova she would remain in Romula, and they would have to hire a temporary fire-eater.

She had not set foot in Cittanuova in thirteen years.

Her heart was in her eyes as she surveyed the silver dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria glinting in the moonlight, towering over the orange roofs, the cream stone of the walls illuminated by pools of firelight from the torches. The city rested in the shadow of Mount Ignis, and even in the twilight Aurelia could make out its snowy peak.

Already the narrow cobbled streets were being decked out in colourful flags, and the excitement in the air was palpable. Cittanuova's annual Festival of Fire was in two weeks, and its citizens loved to celebrate. It was the perfect place for a fire-eater.

The rest of the circus cast had dissipated off to the nearest tavern after two days hard travelling in the hot August sun, but Aurelia was not in the mood for liquor. Her homecoming had brought her a mixture of joy, and also vexation at the unwelcome memories it triggered. She could feel a headache stirring as she trudged towards the inn where her rented room was.

It felt strange to be standing between four stone walls, rather than the canvas sheets of her tent. But she must get use to it. Because this time, unlike thirteen years ago, Aurelia was not going to run away. Unbeknownst to her circus companions, she was here in Cittanuova to stay, at least until the danger passed.

Aurelia put her tools of the trade onto the straw mattress, and propped the mirror up against the wall. She took a steadying breath as Rodolfo's face swam into view in the bubbled, silvery surface. Being a fire-eater was a precarious, and occasionally very painful, job (as the numerous scars from burns on her arms, hands and on the inside of her mouth attested to), but nothing it involved had ever been as nerve-wracking as the prospect of the journey that lay ahead of her tonight.

"Are you ready for your first stravagation?" Asked Rodolfo, kindly.

Aurelia swallowed. "As ready as I'll ever be."

"Do you have the talisman?"

Aurelia nodded, and grasped the object firmly in her hand.

"Very good. Now you must remember, twenty-first century Anglia is very different from sixteenth century Talia. But no harm will come to you provided you follow my instructions word to word. Now, this is what you must do..."


	2. Chapter 1

_Barnsbury, England_

Delilah Bright looked at the mould cultivating on her bedroom wall, and sighed.

On part-time supermarket wages she could hardly afford to refurbish the flat, and even giving it a new lick of paint was beyond her. When would she find the time, and where would she find the money, let alone how would she muster the energy, to do that? What with juggling school and her job she had her hands full.

Delilah wasn't the average Barnsbury Comprehensive student. For one, not many other students she knew lived alone in a council flat.

On finding out that their daughter was living in such seedy surroundings, most parents would be aghast, but in this instance it had been Delilah's own family who had landed her in this situation in the first place.

The Reverend John Bright had been able to cope with his daughter's behaviour no longer. He was a conservative man, a devout Christian, and he made sure everyone knew it. It had been his honour to take up a post in the Church of England twenty-five years ago, but now, in his opinion, to his great consternation, due to the hedonism of modern day living, the moral wellbeing of the Anglican Church was crumbling into sin and disrepair. And it was the Reverend Bright's duty to uphold and protect his beloved Church.

Perhaps this was why he had been so hard on his daughter.

Delilah had chosen New Year's Eve, a time of new beginnings, two years ago, to tell her parents the truth about herself.

"_Bisexual_?" Her father had sneered, "That doesn't even exist! I will say this right now, young lady: stop this foolish fantasising at once! You are disgracing your family and your religion!"

Needless to say, it hadn't gone the way Delilah had hoped.

Nothing was said of the matter until a year later. By that time, Delilah had acquired a girlfriend.

Clara was the personification of her parents' nightmare. Not only was she female, but she sported two spectacular tattoo sleeves down her arms, had dyed pink hair, and was inclined to dabble in drugs.

Mary Bright had come home early from flower-arranging in the local church, when she had caught her daughter and her girlfriend together.

It was too much for the Reverend.

Even though a year had passed since then, it still made Delilah wince to think back on what happened as a consequence the following day.

The Bright family had sat down to their normal Sunday lunch roast. After several minutes of tense chewing in silence had trickled by, John Bright finally cleared his renowned preaching voice, and spoke, "Joan, after the shocking way you have conducted yourself, your mother and I have come to the conclusion that we can no longer have you living in this house. How you have acted has shamed your family and your Church. We simply cannot allow to remain here as a bad influence to Anna."

Delilah had looked at her younger sister. She was then only thirteen, a pale wisp of a thing, and although she had looked stricken at the idea of her elder sister being turfed out of her own home, she said had nothing.

Delilah had turned to her mother in appeal, but Mary Bright was likewise drawn and silent.

The yelling and shouting that followed hurt Delilah to think about. She had smashed china against walls, made threats about social services, but nothing changed the fact that her family no longer wanted her; from the moment her father had made his intentions clear, she was never going to stay. Besides, she had been sixteen at the time, and her parents were no longer legally bound to keep her under their roof.

To make matters worse, she and Clara had not remained an item much longer. Clara had not exactly been supportive; more accurately, she was too stoned most of the time to make sense of what was happening.

And now here she was, lonely, hungry, and perpetually exhausted. In the flickering neon orange light from the numbers flashing on the face of her alarm clock, Delilah contemplated her prospects, or rather, the lack of them. She worked from the end of the school day to dusk in a minimum wage job she hated to pay the bills on a lease of the cramped, squalid flat she loathed, and because of that, had no time do homework or revision, and therefore no hope of getting into a decent university. She had no family, no girlfriend or boyfriend, and few friends. Delilah could see her life stretching out in front of her, one interminable day after the next.

Delilah peered through the gloom at her alarm clock. It read 6:59am. She sighed. It was the beginning of a new day.

_Giglia, Talia_

Fabrizio di Chimici was a desperate man.

All was not boding well for the di Chimici, and the Grand Duke of Tuschia knew it.

Fabrizio squinted out into the gathering twilight from his Giglian palazzo, his hands clenched on the windowsill. The news of Rinaldo's death had hit him – had hit all the family – hard. Rinaldo had not been well liked amongst his relatives, and Fabrizio had been no exception to that. Since becoming Pope, his cousin had added sanctimony to his list of vices alongside pompousness, and had never failed to assume a holier-than-thou stance (although in Rinaldo's case it had been quite literal).

Even so, his loss was devastating to the fortunes of the family. As Pope, Rinaldo had been the second most powerful man in Talia. Without a di Chimici at the head of the Reman Church, there was a definite power vacuum. It could take a long while to elect a new candidate alongside all the enquiries into Rinaldo's death, and Fabrizio had to ensure that someone with the di Chimici's best interests was chosen.

Rinaldo's assassin had picked the worst time to put the di Chimici in danger, when they were at their most vulnerable after civil war in Fortezza, not to mention the humiliation at Classe before that. The Giglian army was depleted, and the morale of the citizens of the di Chimici city states woefully low. Fabrizio cursed the man who had had the audacity to dishonour his family in this manner.

Fabrizio could imagine them all now, that little slut of a Duchessa, laughing at him behind her mask; her fiancé, the Crinamorte scum who had injured his family; Beatrice, his Nucci traitor of a sister; her husband, the Classe usurper; Antonio, that charlatan of a governor, and all his other little 'independent' allies; all laughing at and mocking and conspiring against him, Fabrizio di Chimici.

With a growl of frustration, Fabrizio's hand tightened involuntarily around his glass of wine. The glass cracked with the force of his grip, and unable to withhold with his anger any longer, Fabrizio hurled the glass across the room. It smashed against the wall, and scarlet tears dripped down the tapestry.

"Rizio?" came Caterina's worried voice, "Is everything alright?"

"Fine, fine, _amore_," muttered Fabrizio, putting his head in his hands.

Caterina sounded concerned. "I think Bino may be ill, Rizio, he-" But then she break off when she entered the room, and saw her husband shaking.

"Rizio, what's wrong?" she asked gently, pulling his hands away from his face, and kissing him. Her handsome husband's face tasted of salt, and she was unsettled to find his face streaming with tears.

"We are losing, Rina," Fabrizio whispered, "How will I be able to face Bino when he starts growing up, knowing that I might not be able to secure him all of Talia?"

Caterina did not share her husband's hunger to possess all of Talia; indeed, the notion had always rather perturbed her, and she was quite content with what her family already had. Nevertheless, it upset her to see her normally so unshaken and ambitious Rizio reduced to such a pitiful state of little faith.

"Oh, _cara mia_," she murmured, cupping his face with her hands, "All these are just worries stirred up by cousin Rinaldo's passing. All will be well soon, you'll see," she tried to soothe him. "We will make enquiries into Rinaldo's death, and catch the villain who did this. As for the recent disturbances in Fortezza, the Manoush pretender is dead, and the Northern cities have always been unruly, you know that-"

"You're right!" said Fabrizio suddenly, interrupting her, his head snapping up. "You're absolutely right, Rina! We have been focusing our attentions too readily in the North, when the real jewel lies in the _South_! That little Bellezzan harlot may try all she likes to implement an alliance network with the so-called independent city states, but she will not find it easy to keep a city as secluded and far south as Cittanuova in the fold! We must look to Cittanuova! Having secured that, we could catch Romula in a pincer movement between Remora and Cittanuova, and work our way north..." And Fabrizio was lost, mumbling a stream of political machinations under his breath.

He finally paused for air, and gazed at his wife, eyes gleaming, then, like the jubilant, youthful young man he should have been, he lifted her in his arms, and swung her around, grinning.

She laughed, and he put her down, growing more serious again. "Soon there will not be a corner of this land that is not under this family's rule, and the di Chimici will reign with an iron fist." Gone was Rizio, Caterina's playful young husband and Bino's doting father, and back was the Grand Duke, the steely sovereign.

"I must set out for Bellona at once."

_Bellona, Talia_

Filippo di Chimici had had enough.

He had been humiliated by Beatrice, snubbed by Lucia.

And now he was sitting in the finest rooms that Bellona's most famous brothel could provide, with a glass of superlative red wine in his hand, and a particularly pretty young woman on his knee. For the first time in a very trying few months, he was content.

Unlike his haughty cousins, the affections of the women in this establishment could easily be bought with a few pieces of silver, and they never begrudged a handsome customer a smile.

Filippo raised his wine glass tipsily, "A plague on marriage!" he toasted.

To make matters even better, he was very, very drunk.

There was a knock on the door, and the visitor was let in with much bowing and scraping. Filippo's eyes widened when he recognised who it was.

"Well, if ishn't my coushin, the mosht eshteemed Duke of Tushcia!" Filippo slurred, pushing the scantily clad woman off his knee and weaving over to Fabrizio, giving him a bow so drunkenly elaborate he almost lost his footing. "What a surprishe! I really am amazed that you found time in your _busy_ schedule to come and see old Filippo! Remembered me, did you?"

"Cousin! Well met!" said Fabrizio politely, although he was deeply uncomfortable at the thought of having to embark on a serious conversation about Talian politics with what was effectively a drunken sot. He surveyed his surroundings with undisguised disapproval: Fabrizio had always made his aversion to prostitution, gambling, and excessive drinking clear to his more easily swayed family members.

"Don't you like the decorationsh?" hiccupped Filippo, gesturing to the women and various jugs of wine, "You were alwaysh were a prude, Rizio, even more than Rinaldo, God resht his soul."

"How is your sister, Francesca?" Fabrizio asked gentlemanly, determined to stick to the courtesies that were customary before discussing business, even though the state of his cousin of disgusted him.

"How would I know?" snapped Filippo rather aggressively – he had never been able to handle his liquor well – "Ishn't she cosied up with Gaetano in Giglia, where you put her? Oh, no, wait, but that wasn't a marriage you arranged, though, was it? You know how I remember that? Because it _worked_!" Filippo squiffily pointed an accusing finger at Fabrizio – or rather, at a point to the left of Fabrizio's head.

"Yes, well, I confess that our attempts to find you a suitable di Chimici bride have not succeeded as of yet..." began Fabrizio in his own defence, affronted.

"Which one?" Filippo flung back bitterly, and emptied his wineglass into his mouth, and then, finding it bare, took a long swig from the jug.

"I came here because I want to make you a proposition," said Fabrizio, resolutely ignoring him. "It is an assignment that I think you will find preferable to sitting in Bellona, stewing in wine and your own bitterness."

Filippo raised his eyebrows, unconvinced.

"At the moment, you are merely heir to the Prince of Bellona; you have no real responsibility or occupation. But if you assume this role for me - one that does _not _involve matrimony -" Fabrizio added firmly, "Not only will you have the title of Bellona on your father's passing, but also another station that will you bring you incalculable power and innumerable wealth, as well as making you an even greater asset to this family than you already are. It is yours for the taking, if you will accept the task?"

Filippo, all of a sudden, seemed a lot more sober. "I'm listening," he said.


End file.
